Gran Turismo 7 Standard Edition – PlayStation 5

For the first week, this was definitely the “having fun and relieving stress at the end of the day” game I was looking for.
The graphics are great and the vehicle dynamics are enjoyable… being able to generally experience all of the worlds race tracks is pretty neat!
Had lots of fun learning and many laughs crashing!
The first part of the game is very dynamic. From tarmac to dirt, dry to wet, under 100hp to over 1000hp, cars to trucks, unlimited fuel to literally seeing how far you can go on a single tank… loved it!

After the second week I had unlocked some cool cars (my fav is the Ferrari FXX, but wow are the Vision cars super duper ultra mega fast!). Eventually I unlocked all of the tracks, challenges and finished all but a few races.
This is where the disappointments begin.

I have a strong suspicion that more than one person said “hey these features really should be included in the game”, but was trumped by a higher up who thought “nah, people wont care if its raining or not… and while doing 160mph, definitely don’t want a map that can see far enough ahead to apply breaks in time for the next turn”.
The grievances I have, speak to either intentional negligence or pure incompetence.

For example:
It never tells you whether it is raining or dry, even directly before starting the race…. and if its raining, well why not restart the race with wet tires right? So you restart, except now the track is magically dry!
Expect the same possibility of weather reversing to an unpredictable condition every time. This is an EXTREMELY disappointing overlook.!!!
If it’s raining and you have non-rain tires on, expect to not be able to turn at all.
If you have rain tires on and its not raining… ditto

The controller buttons are not configurable which is EXTREMELY frustrating.
There are only 3 pre-set configurations you can choose from.
The worst example is: In the default pre-set config… if you want to use nitro boost, you have to press both X and R3 with your thumb at the SAME TIME! This is absurdly difficult, plus R3 also changes the view if even SLIGHTLY pressed off center. So if you do not press everything perfectly, it lets off the gas, changes your view and nitro does nothing since your not pressing the gas button… so instead of getting a speed boost while looking forward, you’re watching your decelerating car crash from the side.

Changing the difficulty setting to ‘easy’ does not affect the time trials which are required to complete.
Many of these are so difficult, you can spend days running just one race over and over and over trying to master each and every single corner on a single lane road with 13 other cars only to be glitched by slightly getting your tires over a corner or by getting too close to another car (you are not allowed to go off the track or even touch another car, if you do it immediately fails you).

I have finished nearly every race in 1st… some, like the times trials, required repeating so many times that it really started taking the fun out of it.
Yes, they are that difficult!
Then it got worse….

I swear the ‘Kei’ car challenges literally seem 98% impossible with the exceptions being:
1% a perfect run on 5-10 laps with not a single error and a little luck.
1% random glitches… such as touching an apex curb which magically whips the car into the air and lands in just the right direction which is completely unrealistic.
The NPC cars DO NOT make any mistakes! They run a perfect lap every time, and with so little hp, any mistake is easily -3sec against the leader…. this is where I have been stuck for more than a week now and have lost all interest in trying anymore. I got this game for fun, didn’t think it was gonna turn into a ‘golden psp’ challenge.

Now the map problems.
The top corner of the screen gives a visual layout of the track and every cars position in real-time.
But you cannot discern anything beyond the general track layout, the car indicators are so big, they mask entire sections of the map.
You can switch your racing view many ways, from outside of the vehicle to inside and even looking right out of the front bumper like you’re skimming across the ground.
Some but not all of these views present extra view features such as a rear view mirror and a more localized radar-type map of the racetrack which does help immensely with slow to medium fast cars…. but once you start going over 150mph, if you glance at the map, its too late to see the corner that just barely came into the maps view, so you crash… which means you now have to restart the whole race because the other cars do not make mistakes.
So you have to memorize all of the 63 race tracks to perfection because the map view does not give you enough advance awareness…. a simple example is laguna seca, unless you are very familiar with the corkscrew, the map will not help one bit and is more likely to mess you up.
As far as the nurburgring… hah, its a nightmare in a powerful car unless you have memorized the complete track, the maps are useless and more likely to send you into a wall trying to figure out whats coming up.
And if you think that sounds bad, it also runs at night! so you cant use the map or see whats not directly in front of you… but of course the NPC cars can!

In some races, gas and tire use is calculated which requires multiple pit stops.
The pit options are extremely confusing, and sometimes not available when they should be.
For example, on lap 6/10 I needed fuel and the rear tires were completely red (need replacing)…. but it only gives the option to refuel, I cannot change the tires until all four are red. So even though I wanted to change them, I have to deal with bad handling instead because the front tires are only 50% red 🙁

There are bonus rewards in the game in the form of a ‘roulette’ chance.
Basically it puts up 6 items you can win, ranging from money, car parts and even actual cars…. but 99.9% of every time, you WILL get the least valuable reward. Seems kinda pointless and disheartening to see the chance of winning a $1mil car, only to get $10k credits almost EVERY single time. I have only received a prize above the absolute lowest value 4 times! This is out of roughly 50 times. I dont even care if I get them anymore, I think I have 6 roulette tickets just sitting there because I can better spend my time making money re-running races.
You cannot manipulate or influence the roulette game in any way, just gotta take what it gives 🙁
Sad waste of a game feature!

Pros:
Graphics look cool.
Modifying cars is pretty neat.
Can re-run any race and get the full prize $ every time to put towards new cars.
Love the real life track accuracy

Cons:
Very limited cars for selection… primarily focused on recent (really wished every car from previous versions was also available!)
Map system doesn’t work well, should be dynamic to expand or contract according to speed.
Controller buttons not configurable… awkward controls = unable to race to full potential.
Simple races, are not… level of difficulty is near impossible no matter what you do for some races.

Suggestions:
Hire me
Pay ridiculous salary
Make GT8 with every car from all previous versions of GT, then add more.
Make ‘off road’ add-on which includes other popular racing vehicles from ‘formula off-road’ all the way down to snowmobiles and lawnmowers

DO I suggest purchasing?
Yes and no
If you are looking for a simple racing game to hop in and have fun here and there, nope… this is not for you.
For those looking for a racing game that takes on a near RPG like model where you have to slowly build up over the course of months or likely longer…. this is definitely the one!

The VR mode is excellent. So much more immersive than a regular TV and one of the best VR experiences out now.